[JAPAN] Japanese citizens are getting Ukiyo-e Prints in their Passports

By 2019, Japanese passports will be getting a special makeover for their pages, as they will be featuring the traditional Japanese Woodblock Print art style known as Ukiyo-e. This news was recently announced by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

These passports will be featuring the works on one of Japan’s most celebrated Ukiyo-e artists, Katsushika Hokusai, and they will be using his Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji ukiyo-e series as the base for the passport’s pages, which will be both “representative of Japanese culture and difficult to counterfeit.”

However, since passports will not contain 36 pages, only 24 of Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji ukiyo-e series will be included, including masterpieces like The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Koshu Kajikazawa.

The Japanese government is planning to start issuing these ukiyo-e prints on their passports in 2019, and according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “the timing was partially chosen so that they’ll be ready in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.”

Similarly, these prints have also been used in anime, as the Japanese science fiction classic, Ghost in the Shell, have not one, but TWO of these traditional Japanese woodblock prints, and they are most definitely not cheap at all!